Re: $head->get issues possibly.

* Roderick A. Anderson ([email protected]) [040406 19:17]:
> Reference the $msg->date method mentioned in another message.  The docs 
> don't say what the format is of the returned value.  Well it does say as a 
> string.  :-)

$msg->date is short for $msg->head->get('date'), and may return undef


>    While looking around I also noticed the $msg->timestamp method.  What 
> is the format of the returned value?

$msg->head->timestamp is the parsed version of the date.  $msg->timestamp
is a little smarter.  I have updated its docuemtation into:

  =method timestamp
  Get a good timestamp for the message, doesn't matter how much work it is.
  The value returned is compatible with the platform dependent result of
  function time().

> Of course I'm slowly remembering why I used the head object instead of 
> the message object.  Since I'm parsing SPAM folders I didn't want to read 
> the whole thing into memory just to get the From and Date.

It doesn't work that way.  Each message is represented by 3 objects:
  - a Mail::Message, grouping Head and Body
  - a Mail::Message::Head
  - a Mail::Message::Body

Head and Body can be 'lazy', dependent on option flags but also on the
folder type.  When processing large folders, $msg->destruct may help: it
cleans-out memory occupied by the Head and Body objects.  Still, it 
may be wise to restart the application for (for instance) every 1000
processed messages.

>    I am pulling size information -- for the user -- and setting proper 
> dates etc. so the messages can be expunged after so many days.  Does the 
> require having the whole message in memory?

Depends.  Modifying message content is never a really smart idea, although
sometimes unavoidable.
Why not use Maildir or MH folder format and simply remove all messages
older a certain time by checking their file's mtime?
   find maildir/* -type f -mtime +8 -exec rm {} \;
Or are you not so lucky, not on UNIX/Linux?
-- 
               MarkOv

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drs Mark A.C.J. Overmeer                                MARKOV Solutions
       [email protected]                          [email protected]
http://Mark.Overmeer.net                   http://solutions.overmeer.net